


Nightmares and comforts

by multifandomcircusfreak



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, FitzSimmons Secret Santa, FitzSimmons Secret Santa 2014, staindlighthouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2819741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multifandomcircusfreak/pseuds/multifandomcircusfreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the FSS exchange. Jemma wakes up in the middle of the night and goes to check on Fitz, who hasn't had the best sleep himself. Fitzsimmons angst and cuteness follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares and comforts

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't really feature Christmas, I know. I was too lazy to go back and edit something in, so just bear with me.

_Prompt: Simmons finds Fitz having nightmares_

  
Jemma Simmons was always an early riser. She typically woke up before dawn most of the time, and always managed to be one step ahead of her alarm clock. There was something peaceful about being up so early, with no one else around.

  
She remembered when she was a kid there had been a robin’s nest right outside her window. The bird had almost driven her parents insane with its chirping at six in the morning, but not Jemma. She would be up by the time the first peep could be heard and it was a pleasant feeling to know that she couldn’t be disturbed. Actually, it was almost as if the robin was her friend, her sole companion at that early hour.

 

Simmons knew that not everybody shared the same habit as her. Her belief was only confirmed when she meet Leopold Fitz, who stayed up sometimes until only a few hours away from when Jemma woke up and slept in until noon. Over the years that she’d known him, she’d realized that Fitz could sleep like a log through almost anything.

  
One instance in particular had been when they were watching Doctor Who together and Fitz had fallen asleep. Something must have happened with the remote, because the television had been accidentally placed on full volume. The theme song had blared for a full five minutes, while she struggled to find the remote. After it ended, Jemma was quite sure that she’d almost lost her hearing, but Fitz was still fast asleep throughout the entire experience, not even stirring.

  
But, that was a long time ago, before they were part of the mess they were in now. At times, Jemma found herself awake even earlier than normal due to restlessness. Sometimes, she awoke for a reason unbeknownst to her, others she was suddenly awake, drenched in sweat, a scream halfway up her throat.

  
The nightmares came back usually when she was extremely tired or because of her uneasiness while awake, caused mostly by missions that brought up difficult memories. And she knew that she wasn’t the only one who had them. She knew when the other team members had been deprived of a good night’s sleep. Jemma saw Skye nodding off in the lounge, dark circles under her eyes, before snapping out of it suddenly and excusing herself to go do something useful. May would look less alert, but at the same time more edgy, constantly checking things on her tablet. Coulson could be seen drinking three times the amount of coffee than the norm, and darker, as if he had forgotten how to be cheerful.

  
Personally, Jemma stayed longer hours in the lab, working constantly to avoid sleep. The only person who she hadn’t quite figured out when it came to nightmares was Fitz, which was odd since she knew him so well, but she could never quite put her finger on any behavior that could be exactly blamed on nightmares for him.

  
Jemma was currently awake at three am due to her most recent bout of terrors. She stood facing the small mirror in her bunk, composing herself. This hadn’t been the worst one that she’d experienced. It had been pretty mild actually. She could only remember bits and pieces, but she knew that she’d woken with her stomach feeling like it had dropped.  

  
_Maybe going on a walk will make me feel better_ , she thought. She slowly pulled back the door as quietly as she could, so that she wouldn’t wake anyone else. Jemma tiptoed out of her bunk, along the hallway lined with doors that her team members slept behind. As she passed Fitz’s she stopped. Maybe she should check on him too.

  
She gently slid his door open and peeked inside. At first he seemed peaceful, with his curls even more unruly than normal and his body spread out like a starfish. Classic Fitz. How could he be expected to sleep without taking up the entire bed? Jemma sighed looking at her precious best friend turned boyfriend. She could hear him quietly snoring.

  
Then, the snoring didn’t sound so peaceful anymore. The long inhales and short puffed exhales vanished completely, replaced by what sounded like whimpers. She studied him again, and realized how tense he was, as if frozen in place. The blue sheets of the bed were being gripped tightly in his fists.

  
She quickly walked closer and sat herself beside him on the floor. Jemma listened carefully and could hear indistinct mutters and cries between the whimpers.

  
She lifted a hand and gently rocked his shoulders and when that didn’t work, she shook him harder.

  
“Fitz!” She whispered forcefully. “Fitz, wake up!”

  
He was restless for a few more moments before he awoke with a gasp. He looked around frantically, his breath rapid and unsteady, his eyes darting, before finally seeing her beside him and settling down.

  
“Are you alright?” She asked, trying to keep her cool to soothe him.

  
Fitz locked his eyes onto her, as if trying to block out everything else. She could hear his breath going back to normal, but could also feel him shaking underneath the hand she had placed on his shoulder.

  
“Y-yeah.” He managed. “It’s just a nightmare. What… What are you doing here?”

  
“I didn’t have the best sleep either.” She admitted. “So I came to check on you.”

  
“Oh. Okay.” He said, still looking uneasy.

  
Fitz sat up in bed and patted the blankets beside him, gesturing for her to sit. She scrambled up into the mattress to sit with him and placed her hand over his. She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder.

  
“Do you want to talk about it?” She pressed.

  
He took a deep breath and began to recount his dream. “I… I was on the bus and it started shaking. Everything was falling all over the place and I couldn’t find you or anyone else. Then, I realized that the plane was going down, and I was crashing with it.”

  
Jemma rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. “Well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be the first time the bus has crashed with us on it. And, we’re still here, aren’t we?”

  
He turned his head to look at her and his eyes were loving, beautiful and tragic, all at once. “Yeah… You could say that. But, that wasn’t it, there was more.”

  
Jemma waited.

  
“After it crashed, everything went black. Afterwards, I was at The Playground, I think. You were there, along with everyone else, but you were behind glass. I yelled and tried to get you to notice that I was there, but you didn’t seem to hear or see me. A-and then…”

  
Jemma placed a hand on his heaving chest. “Fitz, you don’t have to continue if you don’t want to.”

  
“No, I need to get it out. There was a someone -a man, I think, coming towards you, I couldn’t see who it was. They all fell when they saw him. Skye, May, Coulson, Bobbi, Hunter, they all just dropped to the ground like the life had been sucked out of them.”

  
_Oh, Fitz_ , Jemma thought to herself. She hated nightmares when they occurred to her, they were like little shadows that swallowed her up and ate at her insides until she was only filled with fear. But now, she realized that she hated it even more when Fitz had nightmares. Fitz, who used to be filled with such a good outlook on the world (despite being a grump), who always smiled, had seen far too much damage.

  
Some of it, she had caused. She’d left him, even if it it was for what she thought was the best. Jemma would never forget the weeks where they’d barely been able to have a good conversation. She’d never forget the time she had cried for days while he was in a coma because she had taken the oxygen, or the months after that when he’d tried his best to get better but never believed he actually was. Most of all, she’d never forget the period of time where they both decided they weren’t giving up on each other and fought day in and day out to get back to the place in each other’s lives that they used to be.

  
Other bits, had been caused by others. Hydra, and Whitehall and threats like them had worn down his walls of ignorance about evil in the world. Jemma knew he wasn’t the same as he’d once been. How many times had he changed in front of her eyes? From the shy boy she’d met at the academy who was sure of his abilities but not what to do with them, to the man who’d been her best friend for years, sure of his abilities and what to do with them but not sure of who he was without them, to the damaged man who was struggling to find who he was without all those things, to the man who sat beside her.

  
She looked him over. Fitz. Her Fitz. Now, he had learned who he was, and gained back his skills and best of all, become comfortable in his own skin. She was proud of him. She loved him so much. It nearly physically pained her to listen to the hurt he’d been going through at night. And he wasn’t even done.

  
“He had a gun. He shot you Jemma, right in front of my eyes and I- I couldn’t even stop him! I felt so useless! Then I woke up.”

  
In the darkness of his bunk, Jemma could still make out the faint tears in Fitz’s eyes. She opened up her arms, and a second later he was wrapped up in them. “Shh, dear. It’s alright. It was only a dream you’re here with me and look, I’m not shot.” She soothed, rubbing his back.

  
Leo Fitz shouldn’t be allowed to have nightmares. No one with that good a heart should be allowed to be trapped by such terrors in sleep. If only the universe listened to Jemma.

  
She continued to hug her boyfriend and whispered “I love you” quietly.

  
He tilted his head up and smiled faintly. “I love you too, Jem. So much.”

  
She grinned right back at him and pressed her lips to his. It was a gentle kiss, slow and intimate, anything else wouldn’t fit the mood. She sighed against his mouth as he lifted a hand to cup her cheek. Fitz somehow always knew how to make her giddy when they kissed, even now in their solemn demeanor.

  
He pulled her up against him and burrowed a hand into her hair, weaving through the stands and gripping them, pulling her head even closer -which was hard. She in return wrapped her arms around his neck to give herself more leverage.

  
“Fitz…?” She said against his lips.

  
“Mm-hmm?” He replied, breaking apart from her.

  
She smiled at him. “We should go to sleep now. Busy day tomorrow.” She commented.

  
Fitz heaved a sigh. “Oh alright.” He agreed. “I guess snogging you all night isn’t exactly a supplement for sleep.” He brought his face down to her cheek and said “Though I’m not really complaining.” against her skin, which gave her an entirely new and more pleasant set of chills than the ones she had experienced earlier in the night.

  
Jemma began to lift herself off of the bed, before feeling his hand gripping her wrist.

  
“You’re not leaving are you?” Fitz asked in a pleading tone.

  
She turned around to see a look on his face that she couldn’t refuse. “Of course not. Now move over, you great lump.”

  
He shifted over and lifted up the covers to make room for her, smiling an endearingly stupid smile. Jemma happily settled herself under them and snuggled her boyfriend, using his arm as a pillow. She fit perfectly beside him, their bodies lining up so that she rest her head on the crook of his arm, place her arm over his chest and tangle her legs around his.

  
They stayed like that for a moment in content silence before Jemma whispered, “You know, tomorrow I just might convince you to take a day off with me.”

  
She felt Fitz quietly chuckle. “What happened to tomorrow being a busy day, hmm?”

  
“I’ll figure something out.”

  
“And are you, Jemma Simmons, suggesting that we take a day off to do nothing?”

  
She slid her leg up against his, reveling in the sound of his hitched breath, and lifted herself up, placing one arm on either side of his face (which was a priceless combo of surprised, annoyed, tired, somewhat scared and best of all, aroused).

  
“I wasn’t suggesting that we do  _nothing_. I was, however, suggesting that we spend the whole day in bed. I have a few things planned.” With that, she went back to her previous snuggling position.

  
“We can, um, talk about that in the morning.” He added, looking somewhat dazed. “Good night, Jem.”

  
“Good night, Fitz.”

  
Together they settled into a comfortable sleep, which they later discovered was the best one they’d had in weeks. After that night, they made an unspoken agreement. Jemma always came to Fitz’s bunk at night to sleep. They didn’t know if the rest of the team was aware, but even if everyone knew, they didn’t care.

  
Their new sleeping arrangements didn’t completely chase away the nightmares, but they comforted the two of them, nevertheless. There was something peaceful about knowing, even in your subconscious, that you weren’t alone.

  
Every morning, Jemma would look at Fitz and would never be able to see from his behavior if he’d had a nightmare. But, she knew now. She always knew. Because if he’d had one, she was right beside him when it happened and had been there to comfort him afterwards. She may not always be able to stop Fitz from getting hurt, but she would always,  _always_  be there for the fallout.

  
_Because nightmares only lasted the night, right?_

  
_The end._


End file.
